Lost In The Dark
by Military Mechanic
Summary: He is a soldier. Always has been, always will be. No matter what is thrown at him, no matter what is taken, Kain Fuery will always be a man of the military. It is his only life - so he will hold his head up high and never lose hope. Not until the doctors tell him otherwise.


A/N: 'ello there everyone! i've got another story up, as you can tell. and this time around, you get to see what some of my whummpage can do! i'm actually really proud of how this came out, and i hope that you all enjoy reading it. any sort of a review would be wonderful, as i'm always trying to improve my writing.

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_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._

"Look, Liza!" A woman says, voice barely reaching above a whisper. She nods slightly in the direction of the noise, light brown eyes narrowing just slightly. In distaste, perhaps, but also in pity. "He's back."

Her companion, Liza, looks up from the stack of paperwork she's sorting through. For a moment, a look of confusion is on her face. Then she spots the man her friend is talking about and she gives a slow shake of her head.

"Such a shame." Liza says softly, and the pity in her voice is clear. She is not disgusted by the man in front of her, like her friend is, but the sight does make her heart ache. She cannot imagine going through pain like that man and then, each and every day, returning to the spot where it all happened.

"I'll say." The first woman, Rita, mutters. She shakes her head, soft red lips curling into a frown. "I don't see why they let him back in here."

_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._

Lize frowns slightly too, though her discontent is directed at the woman beside her. Yes, the sight they are witness to every day is a gruesome one. With scars that are still a horrid red and skin that sill slightly smells of smoke; with one eye sealed shut, one eye forever open, forever unseeing.

It always makes her stomach churn - but she never says as much, not like her outspoken friend.

Picking up another sheet of paper and glancing at it, but not really reading it, Liza gives a slight shake of her head. "They can't _not_ let him in here, Rita."

"Of course they can!" Rita snorts. "And they should, too! Honestly, no one wants to see that."

_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap - bang!_

Liza winces as the steel cane the Sergent wields comes into contact with someones desk. She can hear him rush to apologize, then the soothing words of Major Terrance as he assures the other man that no damage was done.

That is how they should be behaving, she finds herself thinking, not like he's a freak.

Beside her, Rita lets out a soft chuckle.

"What are you laughing at?" Liza questions, but her eyes are still locked on the pale-skinned man across the room.

"Him!" Rita is trying to keep her voice at a whisper, but the laughter in her words is making that a difficult feat. "Just look at him!"

Liza already is - watching as he insists that he can help pick up the papers he knocked from Major Terrance's desk, one still bandaged hand groping blindly around on the floor. There is pity in Terrance's dark green eyes but he doesn't protest and he doesn't make any move to try and make the task easier on the Sergent.

He might be blind but he's still a member of the military, after all. He'll stay a member until the doctors can decide whether his vision will ever come back to him in his left eye - because there is no hope that his right eye will ever see again.

The Sergent helps pick the papers up, then holds them out in the vague direction of the Major. Terrence takes them, thanks him, then wishes him a good day.

Doesn't offer to help carry the large, paper bag that the blind man still has clutched firmly in one arm. Just watches as he retrieves his can and starts off again.

_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._

"I don't see how that's funny, Rita." Liza says, and she doesn't realize it but her voice is soft and sad, as though she knew the man she is watching personally and not just from passing him in the hall on occasion.

Rita rolls her dark blue eyes. "How can you _not_? You have to find some humor in it, Liza. He's worked like a dog here, loses his sight here, and then comes back every day anyway? And I know that you've heard the rumors!"

Liza hasn't, but she nods her head anyway. She has no urge to hear what ever horrible lies have sprung up about the slightly younger soldier.

"Either they need to stop him from coming here,' Rita says, 'or they need to, I don't know, keep him cooped up in a back room somewhere. It's amusing to watch him fumble around but I'm really tired of looking at him every day. It makes me sick."

Makes _her_ sick? Sometimes, Liza has to wonder about her long-time friend. They've known each other since they were children, yes, but they really have nothing in common. Nothing but the same boss giving out the same paycheck for the same monotonous job.

_Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap._

The tapping of metal-on-sone ceases before Liza can say anything to scold her friend. Instead, she finds her eyes being drawn to the fire-scarred man that has stopped in front of her desk.

"Oh, good morning Sergent Fuery." Liza says - and she's proud of herself because her voice doesn't hold the pity she feels inside. It's just a tad too soft, a tad too kind.

Either Fuery doesn't notice or just doesn't care. Or, maybe, it's just that he's gotten used to it?

"Good morning, Sergent Beck." Kain says, and a small smile flits onto his face. It must hurt for the skin to be tugged like that though because, in just seconds, it has gone back to being tired and blank and _lonely_.

"Here to sign in?" She asks, and beside her Rita lets out another soft snort.

Kain nods, then holds his hand out for a pen.

Liza obliges, pulling one from a drawer in her desk and finding an empty sheet of paper to give the wounded soldier. "Here you go, sir."

The smile is there again for a moment, before what part of his face can move is drawn into a look of concentration. Kain's hands still shake, probably always will now, but he puts pen to paper and moves his hand in the familiar pattern that should create his name; and, to a reason, it does but the two words are off-kilter and tilted, large and shakily written, as though it was done by a child and not a fully grown man.

Liza says nothing and merely accepts both pen and paper back when Kain is finished.

"Are you going to be here long, Sergent?" Liza asks, carefully putting her pen back into its proper spot. They have a tendency to dissapear on her if she does anything else with them and, frankly, she can't afford to keep spending her paycheck on pens.

"Not really." Kain says, shaking his head ever so slightly. "I'm just dropping off lunch. Have a good day, ma'am."

And then he has turned and started down the hall, cane _tap-tapping_ on the ground in front of him.

Rita, it seems, can hold her tounge no longer. "That is exactly what I mean! Why does he need to come in here, every day, and drop off lunch for them? It's ridiculous!"

This time, when Liza pulls her lips down into a frown, she also turns in her seat to face the blonde across from her. Rita seems surprised that she's actually getting a response - because most days, her friend just ignores her complaints and continues her work.

Liza doesn't really know why, but she feels like she can't do that today. Maybe it's the fact that today marks the death of her brother, killed seven years ago in a bombing of the residential part of Central. Maybe it's just because she's tired, so very tired, and doesn't want to hear Rita talk about something she doesn't understand anymore.

"He does it, Rita, because he feels like he has to." Liza's words are clipped, her voice short and sharp. "And because he doesn't have anything else left that he can do here. I know you just started a few months ago, but that man has been working in this building for almost thirteen years. He doesn't know anything outside of the military!"

Rita just stares, discontentment clear on her face.

"Personally,' Liza says after a pause, 'I think that it's very brave of him to keep coming here."

"Brave?" Rita says, eyes wide and voice filled with disbelief. "How do you think it's _brave_?"

_she remembers hearing the warning siren go off. bomb in the building. bomb in the building. she remembers people screaming. running. trying to get out to get free to get to safety. she stood up from her desk, spun around to scream the warning at the office just behind her._

_a gunshot went off. then another. three more, rapid succession. soldiers? infiltraitors? she didn't know. just that she had to move, had to follow the crowd and leave._

_as she was running, she distinctly remembered passing two men going _towards_ the gunshots. she spun on her heel, grabbing one of their shirts. she thought his name was Breda but she wasn't sure._

_"you can't go up there,' she shouted at him, and for some reason she was crying._

_he just looked at her, looked at the taller blond next to him, then shrugged her off and made for the stairs._

_just before he reached them, an explosion rocked through the building. he screamed, and it was a name he was shouting, over and over and over again._

"Kain! Kain!"

_as though his life depended on hearing this other man answer him. the taller man slumped to the ground as rubble began falling from the cieling and smoke billowed down from the stairs. there was no way up. _

_later, Liza would find out that Sergent Kain Fuery, a member of the military for nearly thirteen years, had been the one firing the shots; all but the first one, which had been fired by the suicide-bomber into his commanding officers shoulder. from what she had heard, his CO had left the room thinking Kain would follow._

_instead, Kain stayed behind and tried to disarm the man. then he gave up and just took him out before anyone else could get into the room. before any more lives but his own could be lost._

Blinking hard, Liza made sure to clear her throat before speaking again. "Because, if you had been the one caught in that blast, would you be able to go back onto that same floor every day? Or would you do all you could to avoid it?"

She knows what she would do - and, by one look at her friend's face, she knows what Rita would do as well.

Vaguely, Liza notes that she hasn't been to South Central, where her brother once lived, in almost eight years.


End file.
